The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Monday, July 7, 2014

The Lost Wm. A. Wheelock Mansion -- 661 West 158th Street

In 1937 a Victorian garden statue stands as a reminder of a graceful period in the mansions history photograph by Berenice Abbott from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1841 John James Audubon purchased a 14-acre tract of
wooded land in upper Manhattan.High
above the Hudson River, it was a bucolic Eden of dogwoods, pines, tulip trees
and ancient oaks.A waterfall cascaded
down the rocks to the river.

Ten years after purchasing what became known as Audubon Park, which he deeded to his
wife, Lucy, the artist died.His widow
lived on, for a while, in the spacious home they had erected.In 1851 her son Victor built another handsome
residence on the land, while J. W. Audubon also
erected a fine home.

In the meantime, just to the north, William Almy Wheelock
owned a plot of land.Born in
Providence, Rhode Island in 1825, his family had relocated to New York City in
1837 when he was still a boy.The prodigious
Wheelock was graduated from New York University at the age of 18; supporting
himself during his studies by teaching in the University’s grammar school.

The 18-year old went into the wholesale dry goods business
as a partner in Bliss, Wheelock & Kelly.In 1850 he married Harriet Efner.The Wheelocks had two children, William Efner and Harriet Wheelock.

Following Audubon’s death, Wheelock helped Lucy (called
Minnie by most) with her finances.In
the early 1860s both Minnie’s sons died and staying in Audubon Park may have
become emotionally too difficult for her.She moved not far away, just south of Trinity Cemetery.

By now Wheelock had amassed a sizeable fortune and in 1862,
at the age of just 37, he retired.The Audubon
Park neighborhood was filling with mansions surrounded by park-like grounds and
on November 1 that same year, Lucy Audubon conveyed a portion of her land to Wheelock
for $13,000—around $300,000 today.

Wheelock and Harriet had already been leasing the home
that sat on the property, originally built for James Hall.The
plot measured approximately two city blocks—stretching from the cliffs (what
would become Riverside Drive) to the carriage drive that would be 12th
Avenue.According to his application for
a water grant on May 13, 1869, his property ran “between One Hundred and
Fifty-seventh and One Hundred and Fifty-ninth street.”

The Wheelocks replaced the Hall mansion with a more modern,
fashionable dwelling.The resulting
brick-and brownstone residence had every bell and whistle a Victorian villa
could ask for.Multiple porches provided
shade and caught the river breezes, and there were oriel windows, balconies, lacy iron
cresting on the roof, and a tower.But
the visual cherry on top of the Gothic Eclectic style house was the wonderfully
graceful ogee mansard that bowed and curved upward.

Its gardens and lawns overgrown and neglected during the Great Depression, the mansion retained its faded elegance -- photograph by Berenice Abbott from the collection of the New York Public Library

The entrance to the Wheelock mansion sat just back from the
carriage drive; allowing for sumptuous gardens to the rear.A surviving photograph from the turn of the
century reveals Italian gardens with statuary and cast iron urns overflowing
with vines and flowers.

Retired, wealthy and with a completed mansion; Wheelock
found himself bored.“But Mr. Wheelock
was a man of affairs, and he could not stay idle long,” said The New York Times
decades later.Two years after starting
construction on his home he became Director in the Central National Bank.Two years after that, in June 1866, he became its
president.

By 1881 when he resigned his bank position “to devote his
time to philanthropic work” he was a director of several major corporations, an
Elder in the Presbyterian Church and a director of the Union Theological
Seminary.The New-York Tribune said he
felt “he needed recreation and a little more time for the management of his own
property and other estates which had been intrusted to him.”

But “recreation” was a relative term to Wheelock.That year he returned to his alma mater, first
sitting on the university’s Council and eventually becoming its President.For 15 years he served as New York University’s
Treasurer.

There were few grand entertainments in the Wheelock mansion;
although William and Harriet were active in the wealthy Audubon Park community.The New-York Tribune noted on November 27,
1898 “In his social life Mr. Wheelock’s high character and kindly, courteous
disposition have won for him multitudes of friends.He has no taste for club life in the usually
accepted sense of that term, although he belongs to the Union League and Lawyers’
clubs and to the New-England Society.”

As the city reached, then engulfed the neighborhood, the
mansions of Audubon Park remained.All around,
beginning in the 1870s, apartment and commercial buildings arose; but the fine
homes of the Wheelocks and their neighbors held on.

On Thursday morning of July 6, 1905, the 81-year old William
Almy Wheelock died in his summer home in Easthampton, Long Island.

Briefly Joseph Albert Wheelock lived in the house.The editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press
listed his address as “foot of West 158th Street.”The journalist died in 1908.

Dried weeds fill the ornamental urns on the balcony in 1937; yet the mansion was well-maintained and still being used -- photograph by Berenice Abbott from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the time of the Great Depression the Harlem neighborhood
around the Wheelock mansion had drastically changed.Where John James Audubon, who eschewed
cities, had created a pastoral enclave of country homes; now rowhouses lined
the streets like blockades.On November
10, 1937 esteemed photographer Berenice Abbott, working for the Federal Art
Project, was photographing the Riverside Drive Viaduct.She paused to capture the Wheelock
mansion.

Abbot’s photographs show an overgrown garden and a
once-gracious home; now fodder for Addams Family inspiration and children's Halloween
terrors.But still
maintained, the mansion retained its faded elegance and Abbot’s photographs
exude a sense of poignant nostalgia.

Berenice Abbot captured the images just in time.Four years later the City purchased the
property from the Wheelock Estate and demolished the mansion to build a
low-income housing project.